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NSA affair: Merkel wants global agreement

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has floated a global deal to protect data in reaction to revelations about US surveillance. Her center-left election challenger has accused her of failing to elicit answers from the US.

There had been no answers from her to key questions, Steinbrück said, referring to weeks of widely reported revelations about the US National Security Agency (NSA) from the US whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Merkel must outline "in which dimension" fundamental rights in the Federal Republic of Germany had been violated by NSA practices, Steinbrück said. "That's the first question."

'Two sides'

On Friday, Merkel told a pre-election press conference in Berlin - prior to her summer holidays - that there were two sides to the debate on security versus freedom.

Germany was "not a surveillance state," she said, adding that past US intelligence had helped to locate Germans kidnapped abroad.

Surveys show Merkel and her conservatives remain frontrunners overall for the September 22 federal election, but two-thirds of German voters are dissatisfied with her government's efforts to bring clarity to the murky affair.

For three weeks, Snowden has been stranded in an international transit zone at a Moscow airport. He has asked for temporary asylum in Russia. The US has revoked his passport.